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Surmen, an existing ISAF Nominated Expert and ISAF Development and Youth Committee member, is the second RDC appointed by the International Sailing Federation, joining Rob Holden (RSA) who began his role in helping African nations in late 2012.

The ISAF regional development objectives are to:
- Support both new and emerging nations in growing the sport of sailing
- Establish national sport specific frameworks in line with international guidelines
- Develop National Sail Training Programmes together with ISAF MNAs
- Facilitate the training of personnel to be able to deliver National Sail Training programme discipline-specific courses
- Identify possible future venues for regional 'ISAF Academies'
- Provide a link to future training of Race Officials at National / International level
- Enable more MNAs to be able to host National / International competitions
- Enable growth in participation of Euro/Asia MNAs at ISAF Competitions
- Support ISAF members in the application for IOC Olympic Solidarity funded world programmes for Athletes and Coaches.

Emrah Surmen said, "I am very happy to be asked by the world governing body for sailing to help in this way. I started sailing when I was 8 years old, eventually progressing to competing in Optimist and Laser class dinghies at national team level. In 1997 I started coaching and lately I have also moved onto taking part in race management work. The best part of my career started with me attending the ISAF Sport-specific Training Scholarship course in 2010. After I finished the course I was appointed as the National Training Manager for the Turkish Sailing Federation, helping the MNA in setting up a successful National syllabus for Dinghy Sailing and Windsurfing'. At this time I also had the privilege of becoming an ISAF Nominated Expert.

"I am now trying to further grow my passion to develop sailing by being a member of the ISAF Development and Youth Committee, head coach of Adana Sailing Club and now ISAF Euro-Asia Regional Development Co-ordinator.

"My future goal now is not only to continue working to develop sailing in my country but to help develop sailing around the world."

For more information on all ISAF Training and Development related information, including how to develop a national coach education framework, please visit our dedicated website page www.sailing.org/training

Full updates on all activity are available from our dedicated ISAF Training and Development Facebook page here www.facebook.com/ISAFDevelopment and Twitter feed here www.twitter.com/connect2sailing